Tag Archives: Swan

Damrak is a major street in Amsterdam, crowded from dusk till dawn with swarms of the worst kind of tourists – loud, rude, vulgar, uncouth and, sadly, typical. Desperate as I was to quickly leave the center and get to the more quiet and sophisticated Herengracht, a part of ‘De 9 Straatjes’, I came across a disturbing sight – a swan sitting amongst a pile of rubbish. This bird – long considered a symbol of beauty and elegance – had constructed her nest with litter and trash thrown into the water by the severely uncivilized people that make up our poor excuse for humanity today. Her innocent unawareness and the fact that her baby swans will wake up in a mound of garbage, is so inexpressibly devastating to me. Here is a concrete display of the damage humans inflict on the most innocent creatures – a demonstration of how far our most repugnant habits reach.